Female brain size affects the assessment of male attractiveness during mate choice.

ABSTRACT: Mate choice decisions are central in sexual selection theory aimed to understand how sexual traits evolve and their role in evolutionary diversification. We test the hypothesis that brain size and cognitive ability are important for accurate assessment of partner quality and that variation in brain size and cognitive ability underlies variation in mate choice. We compared sexual preference in guppy female lines selected for divergence in relative brain size, which we have previously shown to have substantial differences in cognitive ability. In a dichotomous choice test, large-brained and wild-type females showed strong preference for males with color traits that predict attractiveness in this species. In contrast, small-brained females showed no preference for males with these traits. In-

SUBMITTER: Corral-Lopez A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5362185 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature